Halloween

Sunday, November 4, 2012

The below list is of RPG Related Kickstarters that were estimated to ship (I am using the ship date for the physical item, not the PDF if there is one) November 2012 or earlier. I was going to add Indiegogo projects to the list, but they are so few (and this list got so long) I'll summarize as follows: LotFP stuff that I supported over the summer has not shipped, but Indiegogo doesn't force an estimated shipping date . Barrowmaze II shipped on time!

Colors for Actual Ship Date are as follows:

Red: Hasn't shipped and is (or will be based on new estimates) significantly overdue. This includes projects that have been shipping in dribs and drabs for months. If all backers dont have what they pledged for, it's in red.

Orange: Late but shipped, or recently missed a shipping date and hasn't shipped

Far West
Goal: $5,000 Total: $49,324 Funded: August 25, 2011
Estimated Ship Date: December, 2011 Actual Ship Date: Not Shipped (and has missed interim ship dates)Far West - last update 10/19 (over 2 weeks ago)- updates approximately monthly - First the main / lead artist flaked out in the middle of the job (and claimed to have finished work he hadn't completed), then Gareth got sick, "Far West" as a title will now be cropping up in unrelated media, making marketing a pain I suspect - and no new ship date. If this hits ONLY the one year late mark, I'll be impressed.

Quantum Roleplaying Game
Goal: $13,000 Total: $47,747 Funded: December 30, 2011
Estimated Ship Date: April, 2012 Actual Ship Date: Not Yet ShippedQuantum RPG - last update 10/30 - recent updates have been for the new setting book for the as yet unreleased RPG - I don't care how you spin it, but kicking off a new Kickstarter without releasing the final product of the first annoys me. Invest more into something I don't yet have? Boggles the mind. Even better, the second Kickstarter failed ($7,751 out of $30,000 raised - it failed on 10/18). Gee, think it failed because no one has the first Kickstarter in hand yet? To be honest, I'm no longer excited about this project. I suspect when it ships it's going straight to the bookshelf.

Adventurer Conqueror King System Player's Companion
Goal:: $4,000 Total: $20,622 Funded: March 16, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: July, 2012 Actual Ship Date: Not Yet Shipped ACKS Player's Companion - last Update 10/9 - Updates approximately monthly. No ship date, but feedback from early release PDF has been applied and the contents revised - Updates average one per month at this stage. This one is getting long in the tooth.

Story Forge
Goal: $12,000 Total: $21,736 Funded: March 20, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: July, 2012 Actual Ship Date: July, 2012Dwimmermount
Goal: $10,000 Total: $48,756 Funded: April 14, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: August 2012 Actual Ship Date:Not Yet Shipped (New Estimate Spring / Fall 2013)Dwimmermount - Last Update 11/2 - Updates Weekly. Absolutely the best thing Travis (and James) have done is give weekly updates. In the Way Way Back, where updates were few and rumors were many, folks were getting might uppity, and with good reason. There was certainly a loss of some goodwill during the Way Way Back Times, and Travis is putting the effort in now, but things would have been so much simpler if updates had been weekly from the start, especially with the wide margin the ship date is being missed by. BTW, the Progress Graph is annoying and tells me little except to remind me of how late this project already is.

King For a Day
Goal: $800 Total: $4,844 Funded: May 1, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: September 2012 Actual Ship Date: Not Yet Shipped (new estimate - December 2012) King For a Day - Last update 10/31 - Updates Approximately twice a month. I'm somewhat doubtful of the December 12 ship date, but I'm willing to be surprised

Artisan Dice
Goal: $300 Total: $91,542 Funded: April 7, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: April, 2012 Actual Ship date: May, 2012 and still ongoing completed now I do believe - this suffered from overwhelming response. If you are going to be late, let it be because you have too many customers ;)Adventures Dark & Deep
Goal: $2,500 Total: $7,459 Funded: April 15, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: July, 2012 Actual Ship Date: Shipped September, 2012 - I was only in at the PDF level, but congrats for hitting the ship date ;)

Myth & Magic Player's Guide
Goal: $5,000 Total: $24,076 Funded: May 7, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: August 2012 Actual Ship Date: Not Yet ShippedMyth & Magic Player's Guide - Last update on 9/29 was in relation to it's sister project. PDF released to the wild, no hard copies yet. Last update related to this project was 9/21, about 6 weeks ago. Not the way to remain in contact with your customersAppendix N
Goal: $1,000 Total: $18,893 Funded: July2, 2012
Estimated Ship Date: July, 2012 Actual Ship Date: Not Yet Shipped (New Estimate Late September November 2012)Appendix N - Last Update 10/22 - Updates more than once a week - Brave Halfling is like your cousin who is always late to appointments - whether it's a Kickstarter or a pre-order, the quality has so far been excellent, the timeliness has been poor. PDF versions of the releases look to be on time or close to it going forward - physical products is going to be a wait n see in my opinion.

Dwarven Adventurers - last update 10/31 - blew away it's goal and added so many miniatures to the set that missing the estimated ship goal was a given before the funding even completed. If you are going to ship late, this is the reason. Weekly Updates

Champions of Zed - last update 9/10 - once this project started running late, the updates stopped. Maybe there is info at the forums, but is it too much to ask for an update via Kickstarter every two weeks? Last update nearly 2 months ago. Someone remind me why I backed this project...

Tabletop Forge - Updates approximately every 2 weeks - last update 10/29. Its software. Software doesn't play nice. Updated software looks to be a huge improvement. Hopefully I'll have a chance to use it next Saturday

Race To Adventure - Updates about once a month - Board Game - Blame the delays on European vacations. No, really -"wouldn't you know it, August turns out to be a time when a lot of folks in our field are off on a vacation. But we're not talking about GenCon here -- we're talking about Europe, where we're going to be having the game manufactured. This sort of nations-wide month long vacation is super, uh, foreign to USA-based folks like us, so we simply had no idea it was coming."

This is why the only Kickstarter I ever really considered was the Reaper one. As an established company they have the capability to fulfill the KS. Moreover, failing to do so isn't something they could afford. I do think they were so successful, Reaper will have trouble fulfilling in a timely manner due to the shear quantity of product they have to produce and ship.

I'm also a Reaper backer, and it remains the sole Kickstarter I have ever backed. I'm actually counting on them to be late, if only because they ended up with thousands of backers and millions of dollars. They've been timely in their communication and I trust that I'll have my giant case of minis. With some of these other projects, I won't contribute because I have little reassurance that it isn't going to be vaporware.

There's a lot of red and yellow in your list...Projects I've backed are batting about 50% right now. When you're taking $50,000 money in backers I think it should go without saying that you give at least one update a week to assure that you're working on your project and are doing everything in your power to meet deadlines. Hell, if I was attempting a kickstarter I would never throw down a deadline unless I was 99% sure that I could meet it. I'm sure there are a lot of unknowns and issues that come but factor that in. Its all about managing expectations.

I agree the Storyforge guy did a great job with his project. He had some hiccups but always was extremely clear in his communication and was able to meet his deadline.

I saw on Enworld that Autarch is already starting to pimp another Kickstarter project (not yet started, but planned), this time for a ACK wargame. Even though they haven't finished the player's companion yet.

@Jeremy, we have a couple of projects ready to go that are waiting on completion of the Player's Companion. We're not pimping them outside our own forums yet, but Domains of War is getting talked about (in the EN World case by an independent writer) because it *is* 99% done; it's out there, people are playing with it, and once it's Kickstarted the only substantial things to add will be backer-directed things like choosing the subjects for illustrations.

@Erik, it's good to know that the progress charts for Dwimmermout aren't useful, making those takes me some time I'd be glad to spend on the ACKS conversion instead. The delay on the Player's Companion is frustrating because I don't know what to say about it; the content is there, we're just hung up on the final step of PDF creation. I can certainly say once a week that we're trying to resolve that logjam if that'd help!

@Jeremy - Domains of War was being talked about when I got the early backer's version of ACKS in the summer of 2011. I know it's not vaporware.

@Tavis - the charts remind me too much of charts they do at my job - too confusing and say less than the pure numbers actually would. I know the frustration you are having with the Companion PDF - we discussed it last week. I'd threaten the PDF at gunpoint if I thought it would help, but I doubt it.

@Jay - not scamming, or at least not intentionally, but there is a large segment in our corner of the hobby that fail to realize that when you take money for a project before it's completed, you are taking upon yourself a professional obligation. If you aren't ready for that sort of responsibility, don't do a Kickstarter. Your failure to produce in a remotely timely fashion will be an albatross around your neck for as long as you attempt to be published in our hobby.

Exactly. I am a small time general contractor, and not having a carpenter show up on the day I said he would is grounds for a lawsuit. Welcome to the real world. You get one chance at a first impression, then it is over.

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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (thank you Kickstarter) (edit) BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and will soon have some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep shipping shortly in my grubby hands awaiting a review..

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls (and still waiting on dT&T to ship).

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 48, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)